Ghost in the machine (oneshot unless otherwise requested)
by SpookyZalost
Summary: Tenma is a tech loving teenager in the 2030's, and thanks to his uncle he's gotten into a habit of collecting and maintaining older systems, but what happens when he finds a server containing something far stranger than he could have imagined. (oneshot, possibly partially complete, wrote it half asleep, but seemed pretty good, if you want me to continue it let me know)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: this is a one shot, but I can continue it if you like, this is mostly just an idea I had to write down half asleep, before I forgot, but I thought it was good enough to submit so, enjoy.**  
**Disclaimer: I do not own Serial Experiments Lain, or any of the characters related to that work, Tenma however is my own character creation, albeit just a passing thought for a name, if continued character can be developed later.**

Tenma was like any teenager of the 2030's, he breathed technology, had grown up during the 2020's and the VR tech boom, mostly because of his uncle who had been around since the early ages of cyberspace, what used to be nicknamed the wired before the advent and then universal use of wireless and mobile technology, something nobody could think of living without anymore.

Technology and Cyberspace were everywhere, and Virtual Reality was the preferred method of accessing it, though the older ways were still possible, corporations mostly controlled the access however if you knew the right people or had the right skill sets you could gain access anyway, and nobody really fought this, not like they used to, information was free and people liked it that way.

Cyberspace was everywhere, people walked in the streets hooked into it through augmented reality, people wore glasses not to correct their vision but many just for the access that mobiles once were used for, now everyone used their glasses to make communications links, and a tablet was just a physical extension to use with it.

But as all pervasive as it was, it wasn't without it's dangers, during the millennium there was a lot of hype, people were filled with hysteria because of a series of strange occurrences that happened in and around the introduction of IPv7, which was dropped due to supposed dangers around it in favor of a much stronger and safer net protocol now known as the Virtual Reality Interface Protocol, which became the backbone of what was now known as cyberspace.

Cyberspace in and of it's self was a fairly new layer upon an already multilayer world, it created a realm of new possibility which was quickly exploited by the people who control the world, but they weren't the only ones to see it's potential, fairly early on closed hacker communities took advantage of VRIP and built worlds that were both connected and isolated to the rest of the virtual space around them.

Tenma was now around sixteen, and most of what he knew about this he learned form his uncle who belonged to one of the hacker enclaves, an older one which seemed to exist and was mostly made up of old men from the early years of the net, in many ways it was guarded and defended in the way usenet or certain IRC chatrooms had been decades before.

His uncle had gotten him a VR headset for his tenth birthday and some physical books which while a bit outdated showed him things that allowed him to grasp cyberspace in the guise of a wizard, as time went on he isolated from his friends, his thoughts mostly to the online communities he frequented.

This however didn't stop him, he was looking for something, hunting for a myth told of in the darker corners of the net, of a goddess of cyberspace who cared about humans, an artificial intelligence given rise as the net grew bigger and more complex, awoken by a global consciousness while IPv7 was being tested.

of course he didn't believe most of this, but the story still fascinated him, he wanted to find some kind of evidence or proof of her existence, some sign that he hadn't been looking for a non existent needle in a haystack.

It was during one of his explorations through the more isolated parts of Ikebukuro that he encountered a strange man, he had a scruffy look about him, looked to be in his late fifties, he had a bunch of pre-millenium systems, for sale, one of which was a server which had a lot of weight to it.

The server had a tachibana labs logo on it, Tenma knowing it's value since tachibana had gone defunct nearly a decade before offered the guy a fair price for it, the guy clearly didn't know what he had because he didn't even try to haggle it higher and just accepted the money, he seemed almost in a daze.

Just as soon as Tenma had left the alleyway the guy seemed to have disappeared, having fulfilled some unknown desire or need, it wasn't until he got home and hooked it up to the nearly dozens of old systems in his apartment that Tenma would come to realize just what he had bought, and it was a lot more than he had bargained for.

Once he powered on the system it seemed to run for a few minutes, loading something then there was a screen glitch and it shut off, he wondered if it was simply incompatible with modern hardware, but then he saw the screens on his other systems begin to malfunction as well, something wasn't right and he knew it but this was unlike anything he had read or heard about, if it was a virus it was clearly advanced even by current standards.

He looked at the glitching screens when a face almost began to take shape, it was that of a small girl, she looked scared, then vanished again, he wasn't sure what was going on but something was running around in his systems, and he wasn't sure if they could handle it.

he quickly cut off his internet access, he couldn't chance whatever this was escaping from him, he wanted to capture it, see how it worked, a trait he inherited from his uncle who seemed still capable of building systems on par with what a lot of people thought were cutting edge these days, but Tenma knew better.

It seemed to stop whatever it was and the server's monitor powered on again text began running down the screen, he hadn't heard of such an old system being able to be remotely triggered like that but he guessed whoever had owned it previously had made upgrades to it, or that it had been an early prototype for the technology.

The text began to form clear words, it kept repeating a message over and over again, after filling the screen it stopped, his systems almost seemed possessed, he wanted to see just what he was dealing with but his screens were old, and weren't providing him with enough information so he went into his virtual reality access system and logged into the network materializing his avatar in the older system represented as a simple grid.

there was a light that seemed to be sitting at the center of an outdated sector, probably within the server he had just bought and setup, as he got closer it began to take shape, it seemed to stand out from the rest of the systems as it was represented in graphics on par with the latest vidgames but seemed almost real.

as he got closer he realized it was the girl that had appeared on his screens briefly before, he reached out with his hand but she seemed frightened of him, whoever or whatever she was, she was unfamiliar with current technology.

He stopped moving towards her and spoke, his voice was run through a speech recognition engine and the text transmitted into the program that was running on the screen before, he said hoping to calm her/it, whatever she was, she looked at him with a puzzled expression, he was speaking but she could only feel the text responding to her, it felt isolated, but she wasn't sure how to respond to him.

Within moments she told him her name and was asking how long she had been there, he was unsure but given the systems age at least two decades, she told him about how she had ended up in the system, about how she had done so to save her friends from a maniac with a god complex who was trying to control the world through IPv7.

in return he told her about what had happened since the IPv7 effort was dropped in favor of VRIP which was focused on a man/machine interface instead of forgoing the machines entirely, finally he asked if she knew anything about this goddess of the wired, she seemed confused at the term stating she heard of a god of the wired, referring to the maniac, but that it seemed to transition genders, he didn't realize he was talking to what he had been looking for this whole time.

Finally he opened up his virtual reality machine's security to the tachibana server allowing her to leave the confines of the outdated system in hopes of having a better way of communicating with this artificial construct which seemed, at least at one point, to be a living person, or perhaps was once capable of leaving the confines of the virtual and interacting with the real, he wasn't quite sure which, but one thing he was sure of, he was determined to find out.

**A/N: hope you enjoyed, if you want me to continue this one let me know, I love hearing feedback, but I can leave it here too as a oneshot, either or, anyway Like, Fave, reply, ect..., SpookyZ, Signing off.**


	2. Chapter 2

Lain explored the doorway into the other systems that the strange man who had found her had left open, she felt different when she stepped through, more complete some how, she could more easily speak and began to reach out to the wired to find out the entirety of what had happened in her absence.

It seemed a lot had happened while she was trapped in side the world she was in, it was almost like a dream, technology had gone a lot farther than even she dared hope, wired wasn't applicable to this world anymore, it was more like a cyberspace rather than a wired system.

It was very expansive and had higher depth and resolution that she remembered, logging into Cyberspace she saw lights expanding outwards into the distance, like an endless city, there were what looked like mountains in the distance but in reality they were corporate servers with massive databanks owned by several major companies.

It was both enticing and frightening and she wanted to just wander this world but she guessed it would be better to wait for the strange man to return, it wasn't long after that when he returned, what he had called his avatar appeared in the same room she was in he seemed to look around for a moment before noticing her reaching out and shaking her hand again.

He spoke in a kind a gentle voice, but one of curiosity "lain was it? I've come to check on you, how are you adjusting to the new system?"

she spoke up "it's all very interesting and almost as real as the world I remember, but there are a lot of things I don't understand yet."

he looked at her with a look of both amusement and interest "well I would be more than happy to show you around, you seem to have fairly quickly adjusted to the new Virtual Reality Interface Protocol which is good, where would you like to go first?"

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this new virtual space was huge, she followed closely for fear of getting lost, her thoughts feeling like they were expanding outwards as she moved, what had he called her before?  
An AI?  
Either way she felt more alive than she had since she gave up her place in the physical world, the first place they stopped was what he called a news site, but this was nothing like the usenet groups she remembered, this was a massive file room filled with news articles and well organized, the files seemed to magically move around depending on what you wanted to know and it didn't take long before she found what she wanted to know.

Apparently her old friends had moved on without her forgetting that she even existed, which was normal considering she reset the world without her in it, still it made her feel a bit melancholy to know that nobody would remember that she was once real and not some virtual entity in the wired, noticing her emotions the man who she now knew as tenma decided they should move on and took her to what looked like some kind of arcade, with floating video screens everywhere.

He showed her how to access the videos and that's when she stopped, she saw another virtual entity but it didn't seem to notice her, it was dancing and moving and singing, almost like an idol, he seemed to laugh explaining that this was a vocaloid and was not an AI by any means, it was an instrument and entertainment device designed by a company called Yamaha which was very popular and had been for some time.

Their final stop was what he had called a chatroom, though this was nothing like the text interface from her time, nor was it the strange room she had experienced in the wired, rather it was like a kind of social gathering, apparently each one varied from room to room depending on what the owner or ops wanted at the time.

Tenma was talking to another avatar, this one wasn't even remotely human in appearance, rather it was like a tall lanky stuffed rabbit with strange clown like patterns over it's eyes, he called her over after a moment.

"and this is the girl I was telling you about, lain, this is my friend bakura, bakura this is lain."

the bunny-thing known as Bakura reached out and shook her hand, with it's seemingly oddly articulated paws, it was drinking some kind of liquid though she could feel it was data and would have no affect on him.

"it's nice to meet you lain, I hear you are new around here?"

"yes, it's... strange to see all this, things have changed a lot."

"well tenma here is probably the best guy to ask about things, he's a real wizard, makes anything work with anything, it's incredible, and don't let his modesty fool you, he's a real pro when it comes to collecting, repairing, and hacking systems from before the VR Protocol transition."

they talked for a while before she started to feel strangely tired, noticing this tenma decided it was time to head home so he pressed a button and they were both pulled back into the space from which they had originated, though it seemed to flicker for a second before it became something like the inside of a house, looking towards him for answers tenma spoke up.

"do you like it? It's a new virtual space I came up with just for you, it's made to simulate a home back at the turn of the century, with all the creature comforts so it might be a bit fancier than you are used to, but it should work, anyway I'm going to log off for a bit, I too need my rest haha, anyway goodnight lain, I'll start looking for a way to help you be able to explore the physical world again tomorrow."

and with that he vanished seemingly phasing out of existence as he logged off, she was tired so she walked up the stairs to find a bedroom like the one she used to know, full of stuffed toys and a bed readily made with the sheets all laid out and seemingly soft, it wasn't long before she drifted off into a deep slumber.

**A/N: hope this works for a continuation, I'll work on each chapter as it comes to me, but so far this is really fun to write!**


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